Today is Friday of the 7th week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On May 25, in both the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Gregory VII, OSB, pope, who died in A.D. 1085. In the Ordinary Form, it is an optional memorial, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a commemoration.
In the Ordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Bede the Venerable, priest and doctor of the Church, and we celebrate St. Mary Magdalene De’ Pazzi, virgin. Both of these are optional memorials.
In the Extraordinary Form, we also celebrate St. Urban I, pope and martyr, who died in A.D. 230. This celebration is a commemoration.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Gregory VII, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Bede, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, you can click here.
If you’d like to learn more about St. Urban I, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
Today we conclude our series on Mary. According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
207. In the Byzantine tradition, one of the oldest and most revered expressions of Marian devotion is the hymn “Akathistos” – meaning the hymn sung while standing. It is a literary and theological masterpiece, encapsulating in the form of a prayer, the universally held Marian belief of the primitive Church. The hymn is inspired by the Scriptures, the doctrine defined by the Councils of Nicea , Ephesus , and Chalcedon , and reflects the Greek fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. It is solemnly celebrated in the Eastern Liturgy on the Fifth Saturday of Lent. The hymn is also sung on many other liturgical occasions and is recommended for the use of the clergy and faithful.
In recent times the Akathistos has been introduced to some communities in the Latin Rite. Some solemn liturgical celebrations of particular ecclesial significance, in the presence of the Pope, have also helped to popularize the use of the hymn in Rome. This very ancient hymn, the mature fruit of the undivided Church’s earliest devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, constitutes an appeal and invocation for the unity of Christians under the guidance of the Mother of God: “Such richness of praise, accumulated from the various forms of the great tradition of the Church, could help to ensure that she may once again breath with “both lungs”: the East and the West.”
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